Advice on digitizing 500 hours of footage...

Dear FCP pros!
I would appreciate some advice on the following issue.
I am working on documentary series about Nikita Khrushschev. I will be travelling to Eastern Europe in a month or so and I will need to digitize approximately 500 hours of footage. The footage is a mix of film to Betacam transfers and interviews shot on Betacam SP. The master tapes are Betacam SP PAL. Since I will have only a one-time access to this archive, I will have to digitize everything at once.
As I will be working in FCP, I have a following work-flow in mind.
1. I`ll buy Macbook Pro and install FCP on it.
2. I`ll rent Betacam with firewire output (or grab my DSR-11 and use it as a transcoder with a regular Betacam).
3. Digitize everything using DV50 codec.
Now my questions are:
1. What is the best and cost-effective storage solution for this task?
Should I go with ESATA or even a bunch of Firewire 800 drives will work for storage purposes? According to my calculations, I will need about 16 TB of space.
2. Is DV50 codec the best codec for this task? Although the documentary series I am working on will be in SD, I hope to use this footage in future for other purposes, but on the other hand, I won`t be able (financially) to buy enough storage to digitize everything as 10-bit or 8-bit uncompressed SD.
3. Will I be loosing a lot of quality on going through firewire from Betacam SP? Maybe I should use an additional card to be able to get component into my Macbook Pro?
I am sorry for so many questions. Any advice will be appreciated.
Tim B. Toidze
www.sundialentertainment.com

My take: absolutely absolutely stay away from DV if you care about the quality and future usability of this archive.
If you're going to tape, AT LEAST do DV50.
If you find it reasonable to go tapeless, consider getting an AJA IO LA (the IO is fine too, but it's bigger and more expensive).
Use component connections. If the available decks don't have component out, then bring one that does.
Then do your import to ProRes, at HQ setting if you can afford the bytes.
Do this to RAID 1 so everything is going on 2 drives right away.
Copy those drives yet again if you can afford it and are paranoid enough.
Separate the drives and transport them through entirely different channels.
Yet another failsafe: take it all to some form of tape as well to serve as a backup to the digital archive.
Another approach: get it done to top standards by a local or regional facility. This may also make it more comfortable for those who control the archive.
This is all going to cost a lot of time and money no matter how you do it. Try to get the best you possibly can. There may be grants - even short turnaround ones - for a project which sounds potentially very important.

Similar Messages

What's best strategy for dealing with 40+ hours of footage

We have been editing a documentary with 45+ hours of footage and presently have captured roughly 230 gb. Needless to say it's a lot of files. What's the best strategy for dealing with so much captured footage? It's almost impossible to remember it all and labeling it while logging it seems inadequate as it difficult to actually read comments in dozens and dozens of folders.
Just looking for suggestions on how to deal with this problem for this and future projects.
G5 Dual Core 2.3 Mac OS X (10.4.6) 2.5 g ram, 2 internal sata 2 250gb

Ditto, ditto, ditto on all of the previous posts. I've done four long form documentaries.
First I listen to all the the sound bytes and digitize only the ones that I think I will need. I will take in much more than I use, but I like to transcribe bytes from the non-linear timeline. It's easier for me.
I had so many interviews in the last doc that I gave each interviewee a bin. You must decide how you want to organize the sound bytes. Do you want a bin for each interviewee or do you want to do it by subject. That will depend on you documentary and subject matter.
I then have b-roll bins. Sometime I base them on location and sometimes I base them on subject matter. This last time I based them on location because I would have a good idea of what was in each bin by remembering where and when it was shot.
Perhaps, you weren't at the shoot and do not have this advantage. It's crucial that you organize you b-roll bins in a way that makes sense to you.
I then have music bins and bins for my voice over.
Many folks recommend that you work in small sequences and nest. This is a good idea for long form stuff. That way you don't get lost in the timeline.
I also make a "used" bin. Once I've used a shot I pull it out of the bin and put it "away" That keeps me from repeatedly looking at footage that I've already used.
The previous posts are right. If you've digitized 45 hours of footage you've put in too much. It's time to start deleting some media. Remember that when you hit the edit suite, you should be one the downhill slide. You should have a script and a clear idea of where you're going.
I don't have enough fingers to count the number of times that I've had producers walk into my edit suite with a bunch of raw tape and tell me that that "want to make something cool." They generally have no idea where they're going and end up wondering why the process is so hard.
Refine your story and base your clip selections on that story.
Good luck
Dual 2 GHz Power Mac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I am making multiple DVD's of roughly 50 hours of footage on DVD Studio pro with 4 separate menus for 4 different 'parts' or series if you will. 50 hours - 20 episodes - 4 parts of 5 episodes each. What are my options in terms of burning these parts on to

I am making multiple DVD's of roughly 50 hours of footage on DVD Studio pro with 4 separate menus for 4 different 'parts' or series if you will. 50 hours - 20 episodes - 4 parts of 5 episodes each. What are my options in terms of burning these parts on to separate DVD's, what is the process, what size DVD RW should I buy, what bitrate should I use, and what quality I should expect for the burn. Any advice or insight is welcome.

>>What are my options in terms of burning these parts on to separate DVD's<<
20 episodes totaling 50 hours equals about 2.5 hours per episode assuming all episodes have the same duration. Fitting 2.5 hours onto one single layer DVD would require a low bit rate which means quality wouldn't be anywhere near best, but that's a judgement call you'll have to make based on several factors. For example; if there is not much motion in the video (talking heads, etc), you can get by with a lower bit rate and may not notice any quality difference.
>>what is the process>>
The process is essentially the same as it is when authoring a regular DVD with 2 hours or less of content. However, with as many discs as you'd need to complete this "set," you'll need to create a separate DVD Studio Project for each disc. Basically, you'd use one of Compressor's DVD Presets (or customize a preset) to create an MPEG--2 video file (.m2v) and a Dolby Digital audio file (.AC3). Import both of those assets into your DVD Studio Pro project for authoring and burning.
If you want to keep one episode per disc, DVD Studio Pro does have a 150 minute preset or you could use dual-layer discs with a higher bit rate for better quality. Again; your call.
>>what size DVD RW should I buy<<
Size? 12cm. Capacity? Single layer, single sided DVD discs (DVD-5) have a rated capacity of 4.7Gb (4.37Gb actual), including menus. If you use single layer discs and want to keep the quality reasonably good, you'd need at least 50 discs to complete this "set" with each disc holding roughly 2 hours of footage if you keep the menu on each disc simple. Or, you could use dual-layer discs (DVD-9) which have a capacity of about 7.95Gb - almost doubling the recordable capacity. There are also dual-sided, dual-layer discs available (DVD-18) but they are relatively expensive and have to be manually turned over to continue playback ... but they do have roughly 15.9Gb capacity.
>>what bitrate should I use, and what quality I should expect for the burn<<
Exactly; the quality is dependent on the bit rate chosen, as well as the quality of the compression. Using compression markers where needed can greatly increase the quality of playback but will most likely increase the file size of the compressed video. For the best quality, keeping the bit rate as high as possible allowed under the DVD specification will yield the best quality but some DVD players may choke if the bit rate is too high. For best quality I typically aim for a bit rate around 7.6 to 8.0Mbps but that will only allow about one hour of footage.
Naturally, if you decrease the bit rate, you can fit more footage onto the disc but quality will be sacraficed.   Here's a chart approximating DVD bit rates and durations for single layer discs (does not include space for menus):
3.5Mbps - 120 minutes
5.0Mbps -   95 minutes
6.0Mbps -   82 minutes
7.6Mbps -   65 minutes
8.0Mbps -   60 minutes
-DH

Is the non-multi-room DVR also 500 hours?

My ReplayTV just died and I am thinking of upgrading to a FiOS DVR. We currently have a multi-room DVR that my daughter uses and I don't want to share it with her (and vice versa) plus it's the old 80 hour model. It seems like I can only get one multi-room DVR on my system. If I get the cheaper single room DVR (which is fine with me) will it be a 500 hour model? I just did a Verizon chat and they told me it's 80 hours, but their product page still says that BOTH the single and multi-room models are 80 hours so I'm not sure I believe that.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

I got my answer on DSL Reports. The two boxes are the same, it's just a matter of whether the multi-room feature is enabled. I'll be calling my local FiOS store in the morning to see if they have 500 hour units in stock and will pay them a visit if they do.
I'll be able to trade in an HD STB and digital adapter so the price increase won't be that high.

Ello, I changed my Imac hard drive which no longer worked. I installed a hard drive Western Digital 500 GB 7200 rpm SATA3 WD5002AALX 32M Black. Sometimes I see the hard disk in the utility on the Starter CD, but access seems very slow. By cons when I want

Hello, I changed my Imac hard drive which no longer worked. I installed a hard drive
Western Digital 500 GB 7200 rpm SATA3 WD5002AALX 32M Black. Sometimes I see the hard disk in the utility on the Starter CD, but access seems very slow. By cons when I want
install OS X 10.4.2 on the hard drive, I do not see the disk. What is the problem?

Thanks for the help
I started on the installation CD OS X 10.4.2, I used Disk Utility
to partition the disk according to the document that you have proposed. unfortunately
I have not succeeded. When I partition the disk, even if I called it Macintosh HD, it
does not keep the name and it shows disk0s3 instead. I did an erase on disk.
When I mount the disk it tells me that I must repair. When I tried to repair, I got
the following message:
Volume check failed
The underflying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error.
I also had a message:
Invalid b-tree node size.
Note: The disc is new, but it has already been formatted on a computer Imac 27 inch 2011 OS X Lion.
I used a USB 2.0 to SATA cable to adjust the formatting.
What to do to fix it?

Reinstalling OSX Mountain Lion, and it says 500 hours to dowload?!? hellp

I have a MacBook Air and was suggested to delete everything on my HD before potentiallly selling my MacBook. So I followed all the instructions, disk utility, erase hard drive, go back and reinstall Mountain Lion. Anyways everything is going smoothly, but my installation time says up to 500 hours for it yo download !!! Is that crazy? Some malfunction? Or just my internet connection???
Please help

It could be a server-side slowdown of sorts, but likely is because of your connection. Are you in a relatively remote area? Most broadband connections should take a few hours or less to download the installers, which are around 4GB in size.

Need advice on Digital Music SX warranty options.

To anyone who can help. or can PM me with any details information I expected from the customer service but none I can get?
I am without hope with Creative Labs product now. Since from SoundBlasterPro, 6 etc.... now totally disappointed.
I got a Digital Music SX on March and it dead and return for RMA at early July. And I believe I am in totally lost in this case.
Below is the e-mail to from customer support... I suspect they are not even human, which is only mail record and mail player.
=================================================
Dear Yung Ping,
I already sent back my product to Speed Digital Limited on 2-July and comes up with problemssssss I told you.
Thats why I told you my RMA number: F0007536 , pls help my case.
Anyone can help my case?
Regards
Max
> Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 09:3:47 +0800
> From: [email protected]
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: RE: CLA (CLHK) - Technical Support Request - (Digital Music SX) (KMM92905I5977L0KM)
>
>
>
> Dear Max,
>
> Thank you for getting back to us; sorry that the suggestions previously
> didn?t resolve your issue.
>
> If the issue still persists, you may send back the product for warranty
> servicing. Kindly contact your retailer regarding the warranty
> servicing. Alternati'vely, you may contact our authorized distributor in
> Hong Kong:
>
> Speed Digital Limited
> Address: Unit C, 3/F, Por Mee Factory Building
> 500 Castle Peak Road
> Kowloon, Hong Kong.
> Tel: (852) 2958-3
> Fax: (852) 236-5498
>
> Office Hour:
> (Mon ~ Fri) 0:00am ~ :00pm, 2:00pm ~ 6:00pm
> (Sat.) 0:00am ~ :00pm
> (Close on Sunday & Public Holiday)
>
> If you still require assistance, please reply to this email with any
> previous correspondence to ensure the quickest and most accurate
> service.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Yun Ping
> Customer Support Advisor
> Creative Labs Asia
>
>
> Original Message Follows: ------------------------
> Yun Ping,
>
> Thanks for reply. And NO, I have been customer of Creative Labs since
> Soundblaster Pro, they all work very well and in good condition. Except
> this time the Digital Music SX.
>
>
> . I still seeing many shop are selling Digital Musix SX, and mines just
> got about 3months. Yet your online store is still selling
> it->http://hk.store.creative.com/products/product.aspx?catid=&pid=469
>
> I don't feel happy about my purchase cannot be repair or replace. I
> really looking forward CreativeLabs can REPAIR my product while it is
> still under warranty.
>
> 2. about the USB X-FI 5., the staff at service center they propose I
> accept it as replacment of my Digital Musix SX. I feel not happy about
> it too. They are totally 2 diferent target product and the X-FI is
> acturally its lots more cheapy then the SX.
>
> 3. Also from the staff at the s ervice center, they told me informed by
> CreativeLabs'staff, there is a up coming new product as upgrade of
> Digital Musix SX. Which I can get one as RMA in coming October. The
> Service center staff say they will inform me the details.
>
> 4. I have been sending the faulty Digital Music SX since 2nd July and it
> have been one month, and I still don't know and no idea when I can enjoy
> your product yet. So I expected my warranty period should not be
> counted under this RMA case. Do you think so?
>
> I am pretty much think X-FI 5. is not the one which can replace the
> Digital Musix SX in all aspects.
>
> I really hope to get more details about the status so I can make
> dicision for my RMA, I would either refund or wait for the new unknown
> replacment. And yes, I still need more details infomration.
>
> Do u understand my case? I am still waiting someone can help me out.
> Yet I do not receive any clear status on my case.
>
> Just want to get my working Digital Musix SX back. Either it is demo
> unit nor repair or anything just I need a working unit, thats all I am
> looking for.
>
>
> Also I would like to provide more details on my RMA.
>
> REPAIR SERVICE NOTE:
> RMA Reference: F0007536
> Date: 2nd July 2009
> Customer Name: Mr. Hung
> Contact Number: (852)9307-6880
> Product: Digital Musix SX
> Product Serial Number: MASB05608800054K
> Symptoms: Cannot Start Unit
> Date of Purchase: 7th March 2009
> Valid Invoice: YES
>
> Invoice No: B090307274
> Date: 7th March 2009
> Company: Centralfield Computer Ltd.
> Office: 3C, Sui Sing Bldg, 202-204 Cheung Sha Wan Rd., Sham Shui Po,
> Kln, HK.
> Tel: (852)29592283
>
>
> > Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 3:3:4 +0800
> > From: [email protected]
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: Re: CLA (CLHK) - Technical Support Request - (Digital Music
> SX) (KMM9279420I5977L0KM)
> >
> >
> >
> > Dear Max,
> >
> > Thank you for reaching us at Creative Customer Support; we appreciate
> > the opportunity to assist you.
> >
> > With regards to your enquiry, you may like to know that Digital Music
> SX
> > external soundcard has reached its end of service life and no longer
> in
> > production. You may like to view the specifications and feature of our
>
> > latest USB X-FI Surround 5. external soundcard at the following link
>
> > below:
> >
> > LINK:
> > http://hk.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=&subcategory=873&product=775& listby=
>
> >
> > You may like to know that the warranty for the replacement soundcard,
> > will continue based on your original date of purchase of your
> defecti've
> > unit, Digital Music SX.
> >
> > If you still require assistance, please reply to this email with any
> > previous correspondence to ensure the quickest and most a ccurate
> > service.
> >
> > Best Regards,
> >
> > Yun Ping
> > Customer Support Services
> > Creative Labs Asia
> >
> > To provide feedback on your "Creative Experience" please click on the
> > following link:
> > http://asia.creative.com/contactus/mailto/sitefeedback.asp
> >
> > Asia Site: http://asia.creative.com/
> > Support Site: http://asia.creative.com/support/custsup/welcomets.asp
> > KB Site: http://support.creative.com
> >
> >
> > Original Message Follows: ------------------------
> > ==================================
> > Subject: CLA (CLHK) - Technical Support Request - (Digital Music SX)
> > Name: Max Hung
> > E-mail Address: [email protected]
> > Self Description: Advanced PC User
> > Region: Asia
> > Country: Hong Kong SAR, PRC
> >
> > Support Inquiry: My Creative hardware stopped functioning correctly
> > Product: Digital Music SX
> > CCPP Certificate Number:
> > Serial Number: MASB05608800054K
> > Purchase Date: Mar/07/2009
> >
> > Operating System: Windows XP
> > Firmware Version:
> > Creative Model Number: Digital Music SX
> > Connected To:
> >
> >
> > Detailed Problem Description:
> > my product was return for RMA since 2nd July 2009. Now the serv ice
> > center told me the product is no longer available and suggest me to
> > accept a X-Fi Surround 5. sound card or wait until OCT for an unknown
>
> > new product which claim for upgrade for Digital Music SX. Please, I
> need
> > more details on my RMA. Since the server center told me my product
> > cannot be fixed or replaced, I need to know how will my product
> warranty
> > goes. Thanks for help.
> >
> >
> > ==================================?

. I will not be able to tell you if the Digital Music is available for repair or not. I am sorry but this is not something I have control over. Parts and support policies differs country to country, in your case you will need to work things out with the distributor.
Message Edited by KokChoy-CL on <span class='local-date'> 08-04-2009<span class='local-time'> 05:8 [email protected]

Final Cut Pro. How do I put three hours of footage on Idvd on one dvd?

I tried to put three and a half hours of video onto IDVD but it would not except because it was to long. How do I fit all of this footage on one dvd? Thanks.
Emac Mac OS X (10.3.9)
Emac Mac OS X (10.3.9)

ohhhh! I get to correct Shane (sort of)! In DVD-SP you can burn a dual layer disc (DVD-9). I don't have or use iDVD so I cannot say if it is dual layer capable.
Another option would be to use a stand-alone DVD recorder. Many have an option to increase the record time up to 4 hours, but quality WILL go downhill fast.
-DH

3 hours of footage onto 1 DVD?

Hi everyone,
We have a big project coming up: 3 hours (not including the menu.) How can we compress this using compressor so it all fits onto 1 DVD, either single or dual layer?
I've read in other posts that if you use AC3 audio instead of AIFF, that will help save room... but really i'd like to know more about the setting to use in Compressor/DVDSP in order to pull this off.
Thanks in advance

Do the math.
Double that maximum bit rate for twice the size of DVD5.
It will look better.
But you also might consider editing some of the footage.

Best way to export for hours of footage

hi I have more then 10 hours of rushes of rehearsals from a music gig and the client wants to view all the rushes and choose the best bits for a short promotional video, what would be best way to get these on a dvd disc?
I would prefer the footage to play on a normal dvd player but failing that pc laptop.
I am familiar with compressor and dvd studio pro but dont want to make dozens of discs which will take many days to create, quality or picture size isnt important at all, but my time for doing it is,
any one got any tips on what format, compression setting I can use to get as much as possible onto few discs.
many thanks

VisualHub will ignore quality and blindly cram as much footage as it is given onto a DVD image.
Even so 10hrs on a DVD5 is ambitious. (3 discs would be the minimum or 2 DVD9 is my best guess)
Failing that you are looking at compressing it to MPEG-4 using one of the presets (up to you to decide how small is acceptable) and going the laptop route.
The best time to leave this running is overnight . . do not expect to see a fast result for what you are asking to do.

Removing Digital Noise from CCTV Footage

Hi,
I was just wondering if anyone knew of any good filters, plugins or tips/tricks for removing digial noise, or smoothing artifacts on some footage taken from a survaillence camera?
I have tried the Noise Reduction filter from the Too Much Too Soon free plugins with no luck. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
Martin.

neatvideo.com "now for AE CS3 and CS4 for mac"!
hope this helps,
steve

I can't sequence more than 24 hours of footage in Adobe Premiere Pro

I'm trying to put together 25 (full) days worth of video in Premiere Pro. Is this even possible? I can't get anything past 24 hours to sequence together.
Thanks!!

I would load a clip into the Source Monitor, pick the first frame you want to use, press Shift+E (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+E (Win) to Export Frame, then on the NumPad, type +80000 and press NumPad's Enter key to jump forward. Then repeat until you reach end of clip. If there's a way to automate this, I'm not aware of it.
Note that to amass enough frames for 3 minutes @ 30fps, you'll have to do this 5400 times (30x60x3); 2 minutes at 24fps = a mere 2880 reps. And once you're finished grabbing all the stills, if you want to import them as a frame sequence, you'll need to batch rename them with the same base name and an incrementing number. The challenge there will be to make sure all the images are in the right order before batch renaming in Bridge.
To me, this seems like a painful approach.

Idvd6 more than 1 hour of footage to burn

is there a way to put one and a half hours onto a dvd with iDVD?

Hi ormonde:
Yes-you can put up to 2 hours on one DVD-R...use Best Quality
iDVD: How Much Video Can I Put on a DVD-R Disc?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93330
Sue

How can a 90-minute movie take 500 HOURS to compress?

Hi - I am trying to make a Blu-Ray of a feature film I've cut with a 5.1 surround mix. I still use FCP7 and Compressor 3.5.3. I've successfully created a 5.1 ac3 track but am now trying to create an MPEG-2 file to match. I've been following the workflow described by Danny Daneau at this blog -- http://www.theatticdoormovie.com/blog/2009/mac-bluray/ -- and it successfully worked on another project. But this time the QT movie I've brought into Compressor (ProRes 422 HQ, 1920x1080) is taking an extraordinarily long time to convert. One pass I tried brought up the remaining time to 1200 hours! I'm pretty sure the settings I'm using in the screen shot below match the ones in the blog post, and as I say, I successfully used this method two weeks ago. (I have a 2009 MBP running Snow Leopard, and Activity Monitor shows that the 8GB of RAM are not being unusually taxed.) Any thoughts at ALL? Many thanks.

The projected time is just an estimate and it could take 1000 hrs. (just kidding, it's usually less than the estimate)
Unfortunately Compressor can only address one core and I think something like 2 gigs of Ram UNLESS you enable Qmaster to distribute the processing among the cores. Here's instructions on settings this up.
http://www.digitalrebellion.com/blog/posts/using_compressor_with_multiple_cores. html
You might also try doing a short test by setting an in and out in the preview window in compressor.

How can I download Adobe Reader for a friend who has dialup and can't spend 500 hours doing it?

We used to be able to download Adobe Reader. Not any more. Now we can only download a file that does the real downloading. If I want to download a PDF reader that a friend on dialup can install, I need to download something besides Adobe.

Download the offline installer from http://get.adobe.com/reader/enterprise/

Advice on digitizing 500 hours of footage...

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for